While
Korean exporting companies expect that this year’s export growth rate would be
around 5 percent, an analysis forecasts that in China and the Unites States,
the world’s largest markets, the results will be different by industry.

According
to the report titled '2018 Exporters’ Overseas Business Outlook,' issued by the
Institute for International Trade (President, Shin Seung-kwan) of the Korea
International Trade Association, 28.7 percent of respondents said that ‘this
year’s exports will increase by 0 ~ 3%’ followed by '3-5% will increase'
(24.2%) and '5 ~ 10% increase' (19.9%). Exporters expected to expand their
exports to the United States and China in particular and expressed their
concerns at the same time over both markets regarding the US and China trade
disputes and import regulations.

By
item, exports are expected to increase thanks to rising demand for petroleum
products in China. However, the wireless communication devices are expected to
suffer from intensified global competition. While the exports of cars and automotive
components to the United States are expected to improve, the exports of steel
and nonferrous metals are expected to be sluggish due to increasing pressure on
trade.

As the
main reasons for being optimistic for this year’s exports, the respondents
chose 'securing new buyers' (37.6%) and 'economic recovery of export
destinations' (22.6%). On the contrary, the biggest factors for the negative
views that the exports would be sluggish were 'intensified trade protectionism'
(39.0%) and 'losing product competitiveness' (21.1%).

The
exporting companies responded that 'price reduction' (28.4%), 'quality
innovation' (27.6%) and 'technology development' (21.6%) are important in order
to differentiate themselves from their competitors. As the major difficulties,
they picked ‘lack of new products’ (18.4%), ‘lack of information about local
markets’ (17.8%), and ‘lack of funds’ (16.7%).

Meanwhile,
49 percent of the surveyed companies responded that they ‘had plans to hire
this year’, which was similar to those said 'No' (51%). By company size, it
appears that the larger companies have more plans to recruit employees as 66.2
percent of ‘big conglomerates’, 50.8 percent of mid-sized companies, and 46.9
percent of small and medium-sized enterprises said that they had plans for
employment.

Lee
Jin-hyung, a researcher at the Institute for International Trade said, “As the global economy is recovering recently, expectations for
exports expansion and the concerns over the conflict between G2 to take the
lead, trade pressure, and decrease in export competitiveness are rising
together.” He stressed, “It is
important for the companies to secure product competitiveness and to constantly
monitor opportunities created by changes in the global economy.”